Midwife of the Blue Ridge (50 page)

“Marse Cavendish made Figg do it,” Pollux said.

Connor groaned.

Castor said, “He had Figg lay ten lashes to her after she

stitched his nose.”

“Stitched his nose? Whose nose?” Too tired and impatient to

wait on the answer, Connor shoved by the boys and marched to

the block house. He knocked.

“Entrez.”

Connor took a deep breath before pushing open the door. The

speaking of French always boded ill.

The viscount was never one to stint on candles, but this night

Midwife of the Blue Ridge
353

Connor found Cavendish in the shadows, hunched over his writ-

ing table scrawling away, the room lit by a spartan, pierced tin

lantern emitting the faintest dappled glow.

Scribbling another foul screed to the duke
, Connor guessed.

He made a point to review the viscount’s outgoing correspon-

dence and never posted the most vicious letters—as a kindness to

the duke and duchess.

Waiting to be addressed, the Irishman laced his fi ngers behind

his back, the room still but for the sporadic tick of pen to ink-

well, the scratchings of the goose quill, and the shuffle of his

boots as he shifted from one foot to the other. Without glancing

up, the viscount fi nally spoke.

“What news, Mr. Connor?”

“I’m afraid none, sir.” Connor’s Adam’s apple bobbed erratic

along the stalk of his neck. “The thieves have vanished. The

trackers declare the trail cold.”

“I disagree. The trail is quite warm.” Cavendish pulled him-

self upright and flipped the tin door on the lantern open, illumi-

nating his face.

“Jaysus!”

Variegated shades of blue, violet, and green colored the right

side of the viscount’s face, looking much like a bag of bruised

plums. The flesh swelled so’s a mere crease existed where an eye

should be. At least a dozen knotted, coarse black threads lad-

dered the left side of his nose, evenly spaced like hatch marks in

a ledger. The stitched wound was pink and raw and just begin-

ning to crust. A strip of linen bandaged his forehead, stained

rusty just above the bridge of his injured nose. Cavendish spoke

as if nothing were amiss.

“On the morrow, Mr. Connor, assemble enough provender,

lead, powder,
et cetera
, for you and me, and four men of your

choosing . . .”

“M’lord, surely ye do not intend to travel sore wounded as ye

are . . .”

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Blevins

“Bring enough supplies,
Connor
”—the viscount raised his

voice, wincing at the effort—“for you and me and four of the

best men. A
posse comitatus
, as it were. Ready them for the

most expedient departure, for I assure you, I will be fi t to

travel.”

“Aye, m’lord.” Connor bowed his head, unconsciously rub-

bing his sore backside.

“Do not be so put-upon, sir.” Cavendish laid down his pen

and rose from his chair.

Quick to offer an arm, Connor assisted the viscount to his

bed. “M’lord—tell me—who did this horrible thing to ye?”

“We shall find the man by heading due west . . .” Cavendish

lowered himself to sit.

“
West?!
Beyond the mountains?”

“Yes, beyond the mountains, you dolt. Indian territory.” Cav-

endish swung his legs up onto the mattress and sank back into

the pillows. “The whip’s tickle extracted the information I re-

quired.”

“Tempie?”

The viscount nodded. “Due west into Shawnee territory.

Peavey’s village along the Scioto River harbors the hell- born

Scots witch. Her familiar makes his way there as we speak.”

“He who cut you so?”

“A rank blackguard by the name of Tom Roberts. Upon him,

I shall rain havoc.”

“M’lord, perhaps ye need reconsider this course,” Connor rea-

soned. He took one candle from the candelabra, touched the

wick to the flame in the lantern, then lit the others with it. “There

is no need for ye t’ risk further harm. We’ve the man’s name and

destination. I’ll gather the lads and offer a handsome bounty—”

“Blast your eyes!”
Cavendish sat up and tore the bandage

from his head. Glistening in the candle glow, droplets of red-

tinged matter oozed from the angry
R
sliced into his fl esh. Con-

nor took a step back.

Midwife of the Blue Ridge
355

“Do you see, sir?”
the viscount railed. “Do you see what this

scoundrel has done to me? My life—my very existence thrown

completely out of kelter. I will never, NEVER be able to show

this face in true society. London will never be more than a pleas-

ant memory for me now. The bondwoman and her rabid lover

have condemned me to float forever, here, among the dross of

humanity.” The viscount slammed his head back into the pil-

lows, clenching fistfuls of linen.

“Ready the men, for I will not be dissuaded, Mr. Connor.”

The flicker of candle flame danced in the light of his one good

eye. “I
will
appease my bloody thoughts.”

23

Long Knife Man

Maggie whispered so as not to wake the children. “So are ye

comin’ along, or no?”

Aurelia curled up tight within her wool blanket. “No . . . not

today . . .”

Simon’s older sister, Noolektokie, stood beside the low door-

way of the bark-covered hut tying off her glossy black braids

with bright blue ribbons. “Mag-kie,” she said with a pretty smile.

“Pe-ee-wa . . .”
Grabbing her digging stick and a bushel basket

from the stack of many, the Shawnee woman gestured for Mag-

gie to follow.

Maggie stamped her feet to the rush-mat floor—the new moc-

casins Simon’d made for her had yet to conform to the shape of

her feet. She secured a sheathed knife about her waist with a

length of buffalo tug, and adjusted the woven garters on her

deerskin leggings. Slipping the strap of a leather pouch contain-

ing flint, steel, and dry tinder over her head and arm, she snatched

up a basket and hurried to catch up with the village healer.

The cluster of perhaps one hundred
wegiwas—
simple

pole-and-birchbark huts—was arranged around a large, log-built

council house. Deep in Indian territory, the Shawnee village of

Midwife of the Blue Ridge
357

Kispoko hugged a soft grassy bend along the Scioto River, and it

had taken them four days traveling on horseback and by canoe to

reach it. Maggie did not recall much of their journey. She’d been

among the Shawnee a full fortnight, and still could not shake the

unsettled feeling of having been plucked by the hand of God

from the whipping post at Roundabout, and dropped into

Noolektokie’s lodge.

Simon’s sister’s name meant “Smooth Water,” and true to her

name, Noolektokie glided quickly through the village, her long,

heavy braids swaying with her stride like lengths of rich silken

rope. The healer turned and urged Maggie to make haste with a

wave of her hand.
“We-witippie!”

Like Maggie, Noolektokie was dressed in typical Shawnee

garb—a short leather skirt, a knee-length overblouse, and a pair

of thigh-high leggings—but unlike Maggie’s utilitarian castoffs,

the details of the healer’s attire bespoke her vaunted status among

her people.

Noo’s leggings

were fashioned of red worsted wool and

trimmed along the side seams with a fringe of white rabbit fur.

Rainbow strands of trade beads hung in thick coils around her

neck. Etched silver bands cuffed both wrists, and a hammered

silver disk—as big as a Spanish dollar—dangled from one ear.

Her overblouse was made from the prized, supple underbelly of a

baby buffalo, its yoke and sleeves adorned with rows of colorful

ribbons and affixed with many tin cones that tinked softly as she

wound a path between
wegiwas.

The sun had yet to crest above the tree line, and smoke

wafted from few lodge roof holes. By the time Maggie and Noo

reached the outskirts of the sleepy village, their moccasins were

drenched with dew. Chill morning air showed their breath,

raising goose bumps. Maggie’s wounds had healed clean to but

bits of scab clinging to shiny, pink stripes across her back, and

she suffered a twinge as the new skin drew tight to her bones.

Maggie and Aurelia had spent their first days in the village side

358 Christine

Blevins

by side, flat on their bellies in the healer’s
wegiwa
. Noolektokie

bathed and dressed their awful wounds with a soothing balm. She

banished their fevers with herbal teas, and fed them sweet corn

puddings and fortifying stews to strengthen their ravaged constitu-

tions.

Maggie clambered after Noo, up a steep escarpment, to enter

the mist- shrouded woodlands bordering the river. Ancient stands

of hemlock, birch, oak, and sugar maple forested the rugged

foothills rising from the river valley. The woods were teeming

with wildlife come to fatten on fruit-bearing understory trees.

“There’s a likely tree!” Maggie shouted, running ahead, keen

on harvesting a basketful of delicious pawpaws. She could not

get enough of the sweet, custard apples since the day Noolekto-

kie had introduced the fruit to her. They dropped their baskets

on the ground and began to pluck the yellow oblongs bunched

like grapes on the low-slung branches.

The shift of season filled the air with the ripe smell of decay

and the rustle of dying leaves on the trees. A flock of geese

honked southward, and plump squirrels skittered from limb to

limb, cheeks stuffed with buckeye and beechnuts. Worry knotted

Maggie’s gut and furrowed her brow.
Soon the trees will be

barren . . . rivers frozen over . . .

When she lay in despair, recovering from her ordeal, Simon

had urged her to get well, and she made him promise to take her

back to Seth and the children before snow and ice made travel

impossible. Now that she was fit and anxious to travel, Simon

avoided her. And for the last three days, Maggie had not seen

hide nor hair of him. Bringing her foot down hard on a windfall

pawpaw, she mashed it to a pulp, and hissed,
“Simon!”

Noolektokie tossed a pawpaw into the basket and arched a

brow at the mention of her brother. “Penagashea?” she asked.

The ironic appropriateness of Shawnee names never failed to

amuse. Simon was called “Changing Feathers,” for his habit of

moving back and forth between the white and Indian worlds.

Midwife of the Blue Ridge
359

“Aye—Penagashea.” Maggie punctuated Simon’s Shawnee

name with a disdainful Scottish harrumph. “Penagashea make

Mag-kie crazy.” She squinched her face, clutched at her hair with

both hands, and shook her head back and forth.

Noolektokie understood the sentiment and laughed. “O-ho!”

Though grateful to Simon for bringing her and the others out

from bondage, Maggie had been honest with him from the start.

She told him point-blank that he must take her back over the

mountains, and he promised he would. The prospect of living

out the rest of her life among Red Indians was almost as unbear-

able as fulfilling the terms of her indenture for Cavendish.

Maggie’s morning outings with Noolektokie were the highlight

of an otherwise fear- fraught day. She spent most of her time hid-

ing inside the
wegiwa
to avoid the angry glares and bitter senti-

ments of Kispoko’s inhabitants. Whenever she ventured out on

her own, she was spat upon. Children shouted names and pelted

her with clods of dirt. And once, when she was fetching water, an

angry old woman followed after her, rapping her on the head

with a wooden spoon while dishing out a vile harangue.

Throughout the village, blond, chestnut, and carrot-red scalps

were proudly displayed on lodge poles—a frightening reminder

that after seven long years of war allied to the French, the Shaw-

nee harbored no great fondness for the British.

I canna change my feathers
. Maggie picked pawpaws, be-

mused, for on the other hand, the sharing of a common enemy—

the white man—caused runaway slaves like Aurelia, Justice, and

Achilles to be warmly welcomed into the tribal fold.

Affable Justice exhibited his value at once, setting up a primi-

tive forge and repairing a host of broken guns, leaky pots, and

kettles. Aurelia’s skill with the needle helped her to bond with

the native women, and her nimble mind easily picked up the

complex language Maggie struggled so to comprehend. Young

Achilles fell right into the Indian pattern of life, so similar to the

life he’d been torn from in Africa. He traded his slave clothes for

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breechclout and fringed leggings. Armed with a bow of his own

devising, he endeared himself within the fi rst days of his arrival,

chasing down and killing a fat she- bear, earning himself the

name Mkateelenalui—Black Arrow.

Noolektokie picked up her basket and moved on to a stand of